You’re not feeling well? Yeah, Covid-19 has everything to do with that!

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Before we begin, I want readers to understand that statements in this article are for general information purposes only, but I do recommend considering them on a personal basis. Do not rely on this information to make any decisions on your mental or physical health. It is important that if after reading this you are triggered, reach out to a medical professional.

Let’s start with some questions from an inventory called Reeder Stress Inventory. This inventory is a four-item questionnaire used to measure the general perception of stressfulness in daily life. I want you to consider these questions in relation to how you have been feeling since the beginning of the pandemic. Simply answer YES, or NO:

In general, I am usually tense or nervous?

There is a great amount of nervous strain connected with my daily activities?

At the end of the day, I am completely exhausted mentally and physically?

My daily activities are extremely trying and stressful?

What I want you to consider after reading this is the fact that your stress levels have been severely elevated since this pandemic has taken over our lives. The dangerous part about this is that there have been associations made between psychological stress and: depression, cardiovascular disease, and HIV/AIDS.

For many of us, this whole year has been demanding and taxing. Our environmental demands at times have exceeded our ability to adapt. We are all so scared about the Coronavirus, that we don’t even realize that this fear has heightened our stress, and this might be causing other severe health conditions to be affecting us.

Evidence for the role of stress has emerged and include: upper respiratory tract infections, asthma, herpes, viral infections, autoimmune diseases, and healing (as cited from Psychological stress and disease, Journal of Medical Association). Higher psychological stress has also predicted coronary heart disease in several observational studies.

What I am hoping that readers will take from this is that COVID-19 has added to our health issues, even if we don’t have any of the symptoms that are connected to the virus. Let’s take a look at a couple issues that have arisen.

Lockdowns and stress
The governments COVID policies around the world have caused undue stress on the global population. We are all dealing with: uncertainty of the future, limits on social gatherings with friends and family, threats and enforcement of fines, increasing debt levels and the governments constant flip flops on their positions.
These changing COVID policies are inducing stress and leading to an uptick in respiratory illnesses similar to COVID. It seems like the very policies designed to help, or save us, could be setting us up for more illness and death than if we approached this in a way that allowed for people to feel human.

Mandated masks
Now, I am not going to go too much into this debate. If you are interested in research around masks, I would suggest you review an article written in the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper called, “Mask On, Mask Off.” In this article, I want to present some updated news on how the mandated masks have begun to affect people.

Headaches
One study that followed 158 nurses that had to wear PPE (masks) for greater than four hours per day developed PPE (masks) related headaches. Those suffering from on-going headaches as a result of the mask mandates might be stressed out about that knowledge, and this stress may be making them more susceptible to COVID itself.

I was able to find a quote directly from the Ontario Nursing Associations website discussing the court case they won not once, but twice.

“ONA’s well-regarded expert witnesses, including: Toronto infection control expert Dr. Michael Gardam, Quebec epidemiologist Dr. Gaston De Serres, and Dr. Lisa Brosseau, an American expert on masks, testified that there was insufficient evidence to support the St. Michael’s policy and no evidence that forcing healthy nurses to wear masks during the influenza season did anything to prevent transmission of influenza in hospitals. They further testified that nurses who have no symptoms are unlikely to be a real source of transmission and that it was not logical to force healthy unvaccinated nurses to mask.”

Two years prior to the mandatory mask mandate that has struck most of the world, the Ontario Nursing Association fought and won the mask argument in the courts.

The court documents read,

“In her report, Professor Brosseau canvassed all of the relevant literature and wrote: “It is my opinion that the surgical masks required for un-vaccinated staff at St. Michael’s Hospital will offer no or a very low level of protection from infectious aerosols either for the wearer exposed to nearby patients or for patients exposed to an infected wearer.” Referring specifically to surgical and procedural masks.
In particular, surgical and procedural masks did not prevent influenza transmission by an infected person. The fit of these masks on your face will allow a lot of leakage around the side.”

There is a considerable amount of evidence that shows how stress, as well as some of the COVID-19 policies and mandates are actually contributing to our bad health. It is something to consider going into flu season. Community, take from this article what applies to you, consult a medical professional, and please take care of yourself.